Missouri Synod combats church infighting
Many of us have known for decades that many congregations in
the Christian community love to fight. I don't mean they suffer
through conflicts, hating every minute they are in dispute with
one of their brothers or sisters. No, these congregations literally
love to fight. Some will fight about anything: the color of the new carpet,
meaning of a biblical text, interpretation of a doctrine, or the
credibility of the pastor's vacation plans. By the credibility of the pastor's vacation plans, I do not
mean to imply the holy fellow would lie about a silly thing like
a vacation. I'm saying many of them fabricate huge stories that
will discourage parishioners from following them. For example, here's a typical pastor and parishioner conversation:
"Good morning, pastor. That was a fine sermon this morning.
Say, I was wondering if you and Selena had any plans for a summer
vacation? Those of us in the Young Families Club would sure like
to have you up at Camp Diligence this summer. We would even let
you lead a Bible study (ha-ha) and Selena would probably enjoy
taking the youngsters on a canoe trip since she loves being a
teacher so much. And your kids could help out somehow - maybe
by organizing the teen-agers into a cleanup crew. What do you
think, Pastor?" If the pastor is a clever fellow, he will have a vacation already
arranged, something the average parishioner will not covet. The
pastor could say, "Thanks for the offer, but Selena and I
are going to be studying ancient Greek language texts during our
vacation this year and the children will be going along to study
the religion of the lost tribes of Antarctica." I mention pastors not because they are essential in a good
congregational fight, but because they usually are dragged into
a central position whether they like it or not. Mind you, many
pastors have lost their jobs because they were not aware of the
dynamics of congregational battles. These disputes, which border
on contact sports, can easily fool a diligent pastor. What the
fighters are really looking for is not victory, but rather someone
to blame when this fight gets out of hand. And the fights often do go much further than they are intended.
Pastors are fired without severance pay or promise of employment.
Congregations break down and literally never regain a civil atmosphere.
People are sometimes hurt beyond repair and go to their graves
bitter and unforgiven. To guard against that kind of devastation, the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod, a 2.6-million member denomination, has instituted a program
of reconciliation that might spare some congregations from these
brutal conflicts. The plan is fairly simple. The synod has just
completed its most recent training for mediators. During those
six-day sessions, prospective mediators are taught how conflicts
work and how people react. Then through role playing and Bible
studies, mediators are taught to react as a Christian conciliator,
a mediator or an arbitrator. David Strand, director of public relations for the Missouri
Synod, said the synod's 1,000 affiliated schools and 1,639 congregations
produce disputes ranging from personnel issues to sexual harassment
cases. Eventually, the denomination will have hundreds of trained
mediators ready to wade into those disagreements and help people
search for peace. If you knew the truth, every denomination is scrambling to
settle multitudes of disputes, lawsuits, and arguments that naturally
follow the operation of any organized body of believers. And many
of them end up clogging the courts of the church. Yes, church
bodies have courts, and most of them act in awkward and arbitrary
ways to settle conflicts. In fact, most of the time the church
courts are bending so far backward to be fair that no one is satisfied
with the final conclusion. So this may work, and if it doesn't, who can blame the Missouri
Synod for giving it a try? This is a society in conflict with
itself. If we don't have an identified enemy, we will soon find
one. And the saddest thing is when that enemy is a member of your
own congregation. That's when the sport of congregational fighting
turns to horror.
Clark D. Morphew
Posted For May 29, 1999